Forking path: De-scripting interchange architecture at the Ayalon Crosstown Expressway

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This study explores freeway interchange design as an example of traffic architecture. It reconstructs the design history of one bifurcating interchange along the Ayalon Crosstown Expressway in Tel Aviv, a project that initiated the transfer of American and European freeway technology to Israel. The different geometric configurations developed for the interchange were generated by the unstable, evolving relation among the expressway, city, and national economy and by a fundamental ambiguity within traffic engineering rationality. The realized interchange reveals the disparity among the semiotic, hierarchical concept of route continuity, the optimizing process of cost–benefit analysis, and memory-based spatial orientation. This interchange advances the interpretation of highway technology as a cultural technique that organizes driving activity into a series of switching operations within an informational grid, one that is at odds with the humanist construction of concentric, directional spatiality.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)332-347
Number of pages16
JournalFrontiers of Architectural Research
Volume8
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2019

Keywords

  • Interchange design
  • Space and mobility
  • Technological transfer
  • The Ayalon crosstown expressway
  • Traffic architecture
  • Urban planning

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Building and Construction
  • Archaeology
  • Urban Studies
  • Architecture

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Forking path: De-scripting interchange architecture at the Ayalon Crosstown Expressway'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this